Since the 2010 midterm elections, when Republicans made massive gains across the country, hundreds of anti-choice bills have been introduced in state legislatures, and more of those bills have become law in that time than during the entire decade prior.

Purvi Patel’s 41-year sentence for contradictory charges is a glaring reminder of the fact that abortion’s legal status in the United States does not mean prosecutions for pregnancy loss can’t happen here.

Kansas lawmakers this week became the first in the country to pass a ban a medical procedure used for second trimester abortions and the management of miscarriage. The radical legislation is part of a coordinated effort by anti-choice activists in states across the country.

Reproductive health and justice advocates are objecting that the popular bill still includes Hyde Amendment language to prohibit community health centers from performing abortions except in very limited circumstances.

The Ohio house on Thursday passed a bill to ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, before many people know they are pregnant. A similar six-week ban approved in North Dakota several years ago was found to be unconstitutional.

A Tennessee house committee passed two bills that would restrict access to abortion care in the state. Among the bills considered priories by anti-choice policymakers are those designed to reinstate laws struck down by the state supreme court ruling in 2000.